Raincoat Fetish

Raincoat fetish (rainwear fetishism, or "mac fetish" in British slang) is an attraction to waterproof outerwear (the classic rubberized mackintosh, PVC macs and capes, sou'westers and waders) prized for a glossy or matte waterproof surface, the crinkle or swish of the material in motion, and often the sight of a partner dressed against the weather. It sits alongside PVC fetishism and rubber fetishism, sharing the same synthetic, second-skin materials, but it has its own distinct history: the British mackintosh coat carried a documented erotic following almost from the moment it was invented, decades before rubber or vinyl became fetish-club staples in their own right. This article traces that history, from a Glasgow chemist's patent to the underground magazines that gave the interest a public voice.

Definition & scope

The interest covers a range of wet-weather garments: the traditional rubberized-cotton mackintosh, transparent or opaque PVC raincoats and capes, oilskins, sou'westers and rubber waders, worn either by the person with the interest or observed on a partner. The appeal draws on several overlapping qualities: the coat's waterproof sheen or "wet look," its stiffness or cling against the body, the audible rustle it makes when moving, and a contrast some enthusiasts describe between the garment's everyday, unremarkable function and its private erotic meaning. Because rainwear is made from the same rubberized cloth, PVC or vinyl used elsewhere in fetish clothing, the practice overlaps closely with the broader shiny- and second-skin-material fetishes, while remaining a recognisable interest in its own right, organised around a specific, everyday garment rather than a material alone.

Examples

What the term covers. The range is narrow and entirely ordinary: rubberized-cotton mackintoshes, transparent and opaque PVC macs and capes, oilskins, sou'westers, rubber waders and the wellington boots that go with them, worn by the person with the interest or watched on a partner. What varies is which property carries the charge. For some it is visual: the wet-look shine of PVC, or the dull matte of heavy rubberized cloth. For others it is audible: the crinkle and swish of a coat in motion. For a third group it is situational rather than material at all: rain itself, being caught out in it, or a partner arriving soaked and wrapped against the weather.

What the term does not cover. PVC, rubber and latex fetishism are material-first: the appeal follows the substance into catsuits, hoods and sheeting. Rainwear fetishism is garment-first, which is why a waxed-cotton oilskin still counts and a latex dress does not. A boot fetish shares the wellington but is footwear-focused; a uniform fetish turns on the role a garment signals rather than on the fabric; nylon and spandex are sibling synthetic-material interests without the waterproofing. And despite the name, it is close to the reverse of wet and messy play, where the point is to get soaked and dirty; the rainwear interest is in staying dry inside something impermeable.

How the word is used. The vocabulary is community vocabulary, not clinical: "mac fetish" in British usage, "rainwear fetishism" in the marketplaces and forums, and "rubberist" (a word already circulating in the readers' letters of London Life between the wars) for the wider material scene it sits inside. None of it is a diagnosis: neither DSM-5-TR nor ICD-11 names rainwear, which falls under the general fetishistic-disorder framing that applies only where an interest causes significant distress, impairment or harm.

History & origins

An accidental fetish object

The garment itself predates any fetish framing. The Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh (1766–1843) patented a method of cementing two layers of cloth together with rubber dissolved in coal-tar naphtha, and the first coats went on sale under his name in 1824. Early rubberized macs were stiff, smelly and prone to melting in hot weather; in 1843, Thomas Hancock's vulcanisation process, patented the same year Macintosh died, fixed most of these faults and let the rubberized coat become a durable, mass-market garment. According to Wikipedia's account of rubber and PVC fetishism, although the coat was designed purely for practical weatherproofing, "it found a fetishistic following" almost as soon as it appeared, and rubberized garments were briefly fashionable among wealthy Victorians in the 1850s before falling out of ordinary public wear by the 1890s, a decline that, if anything, pushed the material further into a specialist, semi-private interest rather than erasing it.

Print culture and the fetish underground

The interest surfaces in print from the 1920s. London Life, a general-interest British weekly published from 1923 to 1960, carried an active readers'-letters section that, alongside tight-lacing, discussed "rubberism" and related material interests; it dropped this content after 1941 but is credited with connecting fetish-minded readers across the English-speaking world and with inspiring the artist John Willie to found his own fetish magazine, Bizarre. The post-war rubber and PVC scene coalesced around the designer John Sutcliffe, whose fetish-clothing business AtomAge began trading from a 1965 catalogue and launched a magazine of the same name in 1972, running until 1980 and later described as "the underground bible of leather, rubber and vinyl fetish wear" of 1970s Britain; a 2010 retrospective, Dressing for Pleasure: The Best of AtomAge 1972–1980, was published by FUEL. Wider visual exposure came through the glossy latex and PVC catsuits worn on the 1960s British television series The Avengers, and through the 1980s–90s club scene and its dedicated magazines (Skin Two, Marquis, Rubberist, Dressing for Pleasure), which documented and helped consolidate the whole shiny-material community that rainwear sits within.

Clinical framing

Raincoat fetishism has never been catalogued as a distinct clinical entity. Like other object- and material-based interests, it falls under the general fetishistic disorder category in the DSM-5-TR and the corresponding entry in the ICD-11: a diagnosis reserved for cases causing significant distress, impairment, or harm to others, not for the interest itself, which the literature treats as a benign, common-enough variation within the wider family of clothing and material fetishes.

In practice

The interest is expressed through owning, wearing or watching a partner wear vintage or new mackintoshes, PVC or rubber raincoats and capes, oilskins and waders, sometimes paired with wellington boots or a matching hood. Some enthusiasts favour the classic matte, heavy rubberized mac; others prefer glossy PVC for its wet-look shine, tracking closely with PVC fetishism and rubber fetishism. A subset of the interest centres less on the material than on situation: being caught in the rain, or a partner arriving soaked and wrapped in rainwear, which draws it toward broader clothing and role-based fetishes rather than a fixed material alone.

Psychology

As with other garment fetishes, an early, repeated pairing of the sight, sound or feel of rainwear with arousal is the most commonly proposed mechanism, a classical-conditioning account shared across material fetishes. Enthusiasts frequently point to the tension between the coat's plain, protective, everyday purpose and its private erotic charge, an ordinary object made covertly significant. The dynamic belongs to the broader psychology of fetishism rather than to any interest in the body itself: rainwear is an object fetish, not a partialism, which names a focus on a specific non-genital body part.

Prevalence & culture

No study has measured rainwear fetishism as its own category; it is folded into the wider literature on object and material fetishism. Joyal & Carpentier (2017) found that a substantial minority of a general-population sample reported some fetishistic interest in objects or materials, of which rainwear is a narrow slice, and Scorolli et al.'s (2007) survey of online fetish communities found clothing interests concentrated in leg- and buttock-wear, footwear and underwear, well ahead of the smaller whole-body-wear category that rainwear belongs to. The interest is sustained today by dedicated online marketplaces, hobbyist forums and photo-sharing groups, considerably smaller in scale than the general rubber, PVC or leather fetish communities they overlap with.

Safety, consent & law

Between consenting adults, raincoat fetishism carries no legal restriction and, like PVC fetishism, no clinical risk. The practical cautions are the ones that attach to any impermeable garment worn for pleasure rather than for weather: rubberized and PVC clothing does not breathe, so heat builds and sweat has nowhere to go, and long wear in a warm room can bring on overheating and fluid loss faster than it feels like it should, particularly in a full-length coat worn with a hood. Natural-rubber items are a latex-allergy risk for a minority of people, and a tight collar or cuff can chafe or restrict circulation. None of this is specific to the interest; it is simply what impermeable material does.